March 7 (Reuters) - Five women who said they were denied abortions despite grave risk to their lives or fetuses sued Texas on Monday, in the first apparent case of pregnant women suing over curbs imposed after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
The lawsuit asks a state court in Austin, the state's capital, for a ruling clarifying that a doctor cannot be prosecuted for providing an abortion if, in the doctor's good faith judgment, the abortion is necessary to treat an emergency that threatens a pregnant patient's life or health.
Texas, like most of the 13 states with abortion bans, allows exceptions when a physician finds that there is a medical emergency. But the lawsuit, backed by the abortion rights group Center for Reproductive Rights, says that the law is unclear, leading doctors to refuse to perform abortions even when the exception should apply for fear of losing their licenses and facing up to 99 years in prison.
Texas banned abortion shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.
Four of the women in Monday's lawsuit had to travel out of state to obtain abortions in order to avoid serious medical complications. A fifth was hospitalized in Texas with a premature rupture of membranes, which meant that her fetus could not be saved, but was not given an abortion until she developed a severe infection that required her to stay in an intensive care unit, according to the complaint.
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